2. Contact Info

3. Dealer Selection

It’s a good bet that the average Audi A8/BMW 7 Series/Mercedes S-Class buyer doesn’t care much about dynamics beyond being able to merge ahead of freeway traffic while checking stock prices on their smartphones, or whatever the rich do while commuting. For the rest of us enthusiasts who dream of coming up with the kind of sports-celebrity scratch for a car that can carry the family in comfort while carving up on-ramps, there is the S8.

For its first two generations, the S8 was an executive touring car. This one has a different feel. Chassis tuning is more subtle in part because the ordinary A8, with its sport and individual comfort suspension settings, is already pretty competent, and stiffer tuning can only go so far before this big sporting luxury car gets too harsh. Hence, this new Audi S8, which launches next spring in Europe and in late summer or early fall of 2012 in North America, is all about the engine.

Audi shelved the old S8’s V-10 for a new, 4.0-liter V-8 rated at 512 horses, peaking at 5800 rpm. Thanks to the twin-scroll turbo, the torque curve is flat from 1700 to 5500 rpm at a healthy 479 lb-ft. The new engine is mated to Audi’s eight-speed automatic, a transmission the next S6 and new S7 won’t get. As a result, those cars’ engines will be tuned about 100 horses lower. Though Audi says the eight-speed won’t package with that engine in these cars, it hints at RS6 and RS7 models that will match the S8 in transmission (and thus in horsepower) in the future.

Because it can get such great power and torque numbers, Audi put its efforts into making the V8T (as the badging on the S8’s front fenders indicates) as efficient as possible. First, Audi engineers placed the exhaust manifold and turbo intercooler within the 90 degrees of the V for quicker and more efficient engine warm-up. More importantly, the direct injection engine has a cylinder cutoff system with a sleeve that kicks in a zero-lift cam to cut cylinders two, three, five, and eight at light loads. The twin-turbo V-8 can run on just four cylinders at engine speeds up to 3600 rpm and at speeds up to 112 miles per hour. The car also comes with a start/stop system in Europe that the company says will eventually make it to the U.S., though not at launch.

From this, Audi estimates a 23 percent fuel efficiency gain. While that’s on the European cycle, apply that number to the 2009 S8, the last such Audi sold in the U.S., and EPA estimated efficiency is 16 mpg city and 23 mpg highway.

The noise, vibration, and harshness characteristics of cylinder shut-off and stop/start understandably concerned Audi, so engineers developed two big technological breakthroughs to mitigate the noise and the secondary vibrations that make their way into the steering wheel and throttle pedal. Two active engine mounts, designed to be much like stereo speakers, use fluid to actuate a permanent magnet that moves a diaphragm and cancels vibration from the shutoff with counter-vibrations of their own. The Audi S8 is in the running to be named the quietest, smoothest car extant. DTR VMS developed (and manufactures) these ingenious active engine mounts for Audi. It’s a South Korean company that bought British supplier Avon Automotive, so don’t be surprised for these to show up in a future Hyundai Genesis V-8.

Audi also uses a four-microphone active noise cancellation system to counteract the noise of the cylinders shutting down. It is equally effective. In fact, if there’s any complaint about the S8’s sound, it’s simply that the turbo V-8 makes just a muted sound when you’re inside the car, and only under acceleration. The sound is more pronounced if you’re a pedestrian.

One other tasty bit of high tech are the S8’s optional ceramic front brakes, which shave 11 pounds off the weight of each front wheel. Audi hasn’t decided whether to offer ceramics on U.S. imports, partly because the option could approach the base price of a VW Jetta and partly because ceramic brakes are not linear like steel brakes. A test-drive proved this. There’s a lot of play and mush at the top of the pedal, where you expect the binders to effectively shave off speed. Then, when you find yourself stabbing the pedal further to get some results, the brakes really grab. Will American Audi customers put up with that?

At Spain’s Circuito de Navarra, where Audi held the S8 introduction, the company slipped in a future brake design display with a mystery material that technical product chief Peter Dlab declined to name. He did admit that these brakes would shave 13.2 pounds from each wheel. They are 20-inch wheels with all-season tires or 21-inch with summer tires in the U.S., available in a variety of styles.

The tight, technical racing circuit, near Pamplona, did reveal some handling truths about the new S8. First, this is a big car. Still. It is not a Porsche Panamera, even, though it feels much lighter on its feet than either the Mercedes S63 AMG or a Jaguar XJ-R, the latter of which Dlab does not consider a competitor. He does consider the new S8 a step-up car for BMW M5 owners.

Remember, this is an all-wheel-drive sedan, with the Quattro sport differential designed to push the car into the radius of a turn. Go into a corner too fast, too late, and try to steer your way out, and the car will understeer hard, its front tires scrubbing off lots of speed. Go in the right way, which means slowly and smoothly, putting loads of power down as you exit, and the car feels willing to rotate or slightly drift, even with all the stability controls fully on. This 4355-pound car — about 66 pound heavier than its predecessor thanks mostly to more kit — has the turbo V-8 guts to catch lighter sports cars in the straights. Audi claims a 4.2.-second 0-62 mph time.

The S8’s suspension is 10mm (0.4 inch) lower than the A8. They share suspension geometry and their all-aluminum components and subframe. “The setup is different,” Dlab says, “with stiffer shocks and springs, but the principle is no different.” The Comfort setting overlaps the A8’s Sport setting. North American cars won’t get the Economy setting that the Euro models get, though we will get a dashboard notice whenever the engine kicks down to four cylinders.

Steering feels a bit artificial at first turn, with some on-center play at low speeds, though it turns out to be eerily precise with a considerable amount of evenly distributed weight at-speed.

Audi is cool with what the S8 has become: a somewhat stately, conservative-looking state-of-the-art techno-wonder with a reasonably fuel-efficient rocket of an engine. The slightly rough-edged touring limo is gone.

The eight-speed has a manual override with paddle shifters, though unlike full-manual pretenders, it upshifts itself at the redline instead of holding a gear and bumping the limit.

Audi has designed the S8 as the ultra-stealthy hot rodder, with subtle red-accent badges front and rear, a new front bumper cover and lower skirt from front to the back of the side, designed to make the car look wider. There’s a new rear diffuser and double-dual tailpipes at the outer edges, and an aluminum-look horizontal accent at the lower edge of the front and rear fascias.

Real carbon-fiber accents are standard inside. There’s a rather unusual wood-accent option, though the signature setup combines the “cool” carbon-fiber accents with “steel” silver stitching over Moon Silver leather inside, Prisma Silver paint outside, colors not available on the A8. The leather seats have a diamond pattern, and there’s Alcantara wherever there isn’t leather. The dashboard leather extends all the way to the windshield.

Seats are “sport-comfort,” which means they could use a bit more bolstering for the kind of racetrack drive that no owner ever will attempt. There’s a subtle red ring around the start/stop button; aluminum pedal accents; a thick, Alcantara three-spoke steering wheel; and a backlit S8 logo on the doorsill plate.

Several Audi reps repeated, “You can get anything you want.” Europeans tend to custom-order their S8s, while impatient Americans buy off the Audi lot, which means dealers are eager to order up a lot of ceramic brake options.

Dlab expects the global market to take 7000 to 8000 S8s annually, with anywhere from 1050 to 1600 coming to America. If we don’t take that many, China most certainly will. They don’t care about sports cars, so the S8 will be China’s R8 halo.

Price is to be announced. Ours will most likely cost less than the 111,900 euro base price of the EU market car (about U.S. $154,000), though much more than the $97,000 base of the ’09 S8. With turbo V-6 and turbodiesel versions of the A8 coming to the U.S., it doesn’t really matter how many S8s Audi sells. It’s an executive hot rod made more for enthusiasts’ dreams than for those who dream only of conquering Wall Street.

2012 Audi News and Reviews

It's a good bet that the average Audi A8/BMW 7 Series/Mercedes S-Class buyer doesn't care much about dynamics beyond being able to merge ahead of freeway traffic while checking stock prices on their smartphones, or whatever the rich do while commuting. For the rest of us enthusiasts who dream of coming up with the kind of sports-celebrity scratch for a…

The 2012 Audi S8 may share the same TSFI, twin-turbo, V-8-engine found in the S6 and S7, but that's about it. In order to maintain its flagship status in the Audi hierarchy, the S8 is tuned to put out 520 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque, 100 hp and 73 lb-ft more than the S6 and S7. Though the engine…